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Back in the old days, Yoga was all about sitting quietly wearing earth tones, so when Lenovo announced a range of transforming laptops, we were delighted. While the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 was a revelation, the, um, Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 was a significantly more underwhelming proposition. That's because it was running Windows RT, Microsoft's poorly-handled attempt to beat Android tablets with an operating system that looked like Windows, but couldn't run any Windows software. When Dana "The Laptop Lady" Wollman reviewed it, her opinion could be summed up with this single quote: "what good is a Windows laptop without the ability to run legacy x86 apps?" So, what about you, gentle folk of Engadget? Did you buy one? Has the experience improved to the point where you don't miss your legacy software? Why not share all on our product forum or write a review of your own?

I don't normally discuss products that I've reviewed on How Would You Change, but I'm making an exception for Samsung's ATIV Tab. The Korean company pondered the merits of launching the device right up to its debut, and swiftly axed any US expansion before it could get off the ground. As one of the first Windows RT devices, it came with a hobbled operating system, but the hardware was staggeringly good. Unfortunately, it's rare that anyone actually splashed out on this unit, but I'm still asking anyone who owned one of these units to chip in. Come to the forum and share your experiences of using the ATIV Tab. What did you like, what did you hate and what would you have changed?

Up until now, the most we'd heard about the next rumored update to Microsoft's Windows Phone OS centered on two features: Cortana, the company's Siri-like digital assistant, and Action Center, its native notification center. Today, however, we have a clearer idea of where Windows Phone 8.1 could be headed thanks to a Reddit user who's allegedly gained access to the new SDK as part of Microsoft's developer preview program.

If one takes a narrow view of the tablet market, the largest PC makers have fared especially poorly as a group. At the launch of the iPad, HP, Dell, Acer and Lenovo had little experience with the Android ecosystem, which itself was not optimized for tablets. And Windows, their go-to operating system, was still not available in a version that would show off bold, finger-friendly tiles and yield long battery life in a slim form factor. Even now as these companies have experimented with all kinds of hinges and accessories on Windows, their Android efforts can be hard to differentiate as with HP's Slate 7 and Dell's recent 7- and 8-inch slates.

Into this spiritless landscape, Lenovo has dropped the Yoga Tablet, available in 8- and 10-inch sizes. Unlike its namesake Windows laptop, which reveals no obvious signs of its differentiation at first glance, the Yoga Tablet has a silver, cylindrical side that is reminiscent of extended laptop batteries. Indeed, it contains the battery here as well as making for a grip that is at first unfamiliar, but which allows the rest of the tablet to be very thin.

In a Microsoft strategy that embraces contradiction -- licensing software while trying to build its own devices -- it is unsurprising that goals for the Surface support competing priorities. On one hand, it is a showcase, a pure Microsoft experience in a role that the Nexus phones and tablets serve for Google. On the other hand, it is part of a line of business that must deliver profit over the long term. It is a product that Microsoft has bet big on in terms of development, marketing and inventory. And when its first iteration failed to meet sales expectations, Microsoft felt the pain.

Surface has had a third, subtler role as well. In the world of traditional personal computing, it is one thing for Apple to do away with a modem or an optical drive. It is another for Intel to enable longer usage times and thinner form factors. But Surface has enabled Microsoft to set trends for a product's design in ways it could not when it was simply dictating hardware from the sidelines. Remember, for example, the SideShow second screen it advocated with Windows Vista?

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columnmicrosoftpersonal computingPersonalComputingrossrubinsurfaceswitchedontabletswindows 8windows rtWindows8WindowsRtMon, 04 Nov 2013 18:36:00 -050021|20760825http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/21/microsoft-has-a-fix-for-your-surface-rt/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget&ncid=rss_semi
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After releasing and subsequently pulling a buggy version of Windows RT 8.1 from the Windows Store, Microsoft is offering a fix to affected users. Redmond has released instructions for restoring those devices that involves creating a USB recovery drive among other things. If doing it DIY seems a bit overwhelming, however, you can also send your tablet in for service. No word yet on when a fresh and fixed version of the Windows RT update will return to the Windows Store, but you can find detailed instructions for restoring your tablet at the source link below.

What's the definition of insanity? Trying the same thing several times and expecting a different outcome. While we wouldn't suggest that Microsoft's finest minds are in need of urgent medical care, it does seem as if the company's executives have failed to heed the lessons doled out this summer. After all, it was only a few months ago that Microsoft had to admit that very few Surface RT tablets had been sold, and booked a $900 million loss on inventory that remains rotting in warehouses.

At today's launch of Microsoft's second Windows RT-running slate, Surface chief Panos Panay opened his remarks by saying that the "Surface 2 is not subtle, but is a revamp. It is not the simple changes that everybody wants, but it's the changes people need." Unfortunately, the changes that he then went on to describe involved making the device thinner, faster and giving it a full-HD display -- criticisms that few had leveled at the first generation of the hardware. No, the problems that every critic had were the limitations of the Surface's operating system: Windows RT. Not that you'd know it from today's event. In fact, Microsoft went out of its way to downplay the fact that the Surface 2 runs RT, mentioning the ambitious Windows-on-ARM project only three times in an hour. But why was the star of the show reduced to such a bit-part role?

"Windows RT was our first ARM tablet(sic). And as phones extend into tablets, expect us to see many more ARM tablets, Windows ARM tablets in the future."

Myerson's choice of words, and in particular his reference to phones that "extend into tablets," suggests that Microsoft could be looking to bridge the divide between its smartphone and tablet divisions, and perhaps give Windows Phone a much more prominent role than the much-maligned Windows RT. Indeed, using Windows Phone as a tablet OS, or merging WP and RT, would help Microsoft to unify its various platforms and apps -- something it has talked about in the past and that is actually a key focus of Myserson's work:

"... we really should have one silicon interface for all of our devices. We should have one set of developer APIs on all of our devices. And all of the apps we bring to end users should be available on all of our devices."

So, who knows, perhaps Windows Phone and RT have a common future? In which case, the idea of Nokia taking charge of this unified drive -- building phones and tablets on the same platform -- would make a lot of sense.

We're at Lenovo's 2013 press conference, and during the Q&A session, the company's executives offered a hint as to their lack of plans for Windows RT devices. When quizzed on Microsoft's moribundoperating system, Australian marketing chief Nick Reynolds said that Intel's Haswell has eliminated the choice between long battery life and good performance. Since, consequently, users can run full-fat Windows 8 and get a full day of use from a single charge, there's not much call for a low-power version. To us, at least, it seems like it's not too far away from them saying that we won't see a follow-up to last year's RT-running Yoga 11, but we'll check with our Magic 8 ball just to be sure.

Today's hottest and best-selling tablets and smartphones have one thing in common: they are powered by ARM processors. Offered in such variations as NVIDIA's Tegra, Qualcomm's Snapdragon, Samsung's Exynos and Apple's A6, ARM processors dominate the leading edge of mobile products. At LG's recent announcement of its clever and well-appointed G2 smartphone, much was made of it being the first globally launched phone to include Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800; Android, in contrast, wasn't mentioned once. And the long reach of ARM extends far beyond the bleeding edge. The Hisense Sero 7 Pro -- recently cut to $129 just a few weeks after its launch -- has a Tegra 3 processor while ARM chips from Rockchip and MediaTek power Android tablets at even humbler price points.

For years, Intel has promised it would be competitive with ARM in terms of performance per watt (if not in price). It has made great strides both in its smartphone-focused Atom chips and its performance-oriented Core chips (including Haswell, the CPU behind the MacBook Air's huge gains in battery life), but those in the ARM camp have kept their processors' competitive heat up while keeping their generated heat down.

This isn't a huge shock, given that ASUS has already publicly expressed woes about poor sales of its Windows RT products, but CEO Jerry Shen's latest comments have a surprising edge of finality to them. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, he said "it's not only our opinion, the industry sentiment is also that Windows RT has not been successful." He revealed that the company has taken a writedown on its stock of RT tablets, although he didn't reveal the size of the loss. He also said that, from now on, ASUS will solely make Windows 8 devices that run on Intel / x86 processors, due to the backwards compatibility with Windows software offered by those products. Meanwhile, NVIDIA has also predicted losses due to its involvement with RT, but it seems to be pushing ahead with a next-gen ARM-based Surface tablet regardless.

As ASUS goes full steam ahead in the smartphone space, prepping itself for an entry into the US market, the company has apparently done a rethink on its support for Windows RT. Chairman Jonney Shih told All Things D that, as far as the company's work with the Windows 8 offshoot goes, "the result is not very promising." Don't take that to mean that ASUS is set on completely abandoning the OS, but the future of ASUS Windows RT devices doesn't look particularly bright at the moment.

Hot on the heels of the recent iOS and Android overhaul of OneNote comes an update for the Windows 8 and Windows RT versions which adds Office 365 integration and touch keyboard improvements. The app is available in the Windows Store right now and lets you sign into your Office 365 school or work account and sync notebooks right from within the OneNote app. As for the touch keyboard, it's both invoked and dismissed by simply tapping into any empty space, which makes it easier to use. This allows you to switch seamlessly between inputting text and finger painting -- or basically, just focus on your notes. Hit the source link below for the update.

Acer has already managed to cram full Windows 8 into a $380 8-incher (shown above), but ARM-based Windows RT tablets have the potential to drive prices down even further -- if only someone, somewhere would see their merit. According to Bloomberg, Microsoft is now trying to help things along by offering discounts to OEMs who'll use RT in smaller tablets. The prices in question are confidential, so it's hard to gauge the likely impact for consumers, but with Dell's XPS 10 still costing $400 with its dock, and with Surface RT fetching $500, there's definitely scope for improvement.

Ever since Acer's Linxian Lang said that Microsoft would eat "hard rice" for building its own Windows RT hardware, the company has treated the operating system with something bordering on contempt. When asked about Acer's long-gestating RT device, Acer president Jim Wong said "to be honest, there's no value doing [hardware for] the current version of RT." Given the underwhelming interest in RT gear that other companies have reported, we're not sure if Wong's comments qualify as a sick burn or merely kicking an adolescent piece of software when it's down.

Say what you like about Windows 8, but before it arrived Microsoft's presence in the tablet sphere was as small as it was stagnant. By the reckoning of number-crunchers at Strategy Analytics, just 400,000 Windows-running slates were shipped globally in Q3 of last year -- a figure that was largely unchanged from the year before and which represented just 1.6 percent of the global tablet market. Six months later, now that the Windows-powered Acers, Lenovos and Surfaces of this world have had a chance to get their game on, Microsoft's share has quadrupled to 7.5 percent, with a total of 3 million Windows 8 and RT tablets shipped in Q1 2013. That's still pretty niche, but 3 million units would have equated to a bigger share were it not for the fact that the overall tablet market also grew over this period, from 25 million to 41 million units -- and at least Microsoft can now claim to be a part of that boom. Look past the break for the numerical breakdown.

You don't need to be Captain Subtext to understand that a few manufacturers (and developers) aren't best pleased with Microsoft's latest mobile products. The latest to damn Redmond with faint praise is Samsung's newly-minted Co-CEO, JK Shin, who told The Wall Street Journal that demand for Windows-based phones and tablets isn't sending the company's accountants cross-eyed with glee. When asked about Samsung's relationship with Microsoft after the latter deepened its ties with Nokia, Shin said:

"Smartphones and tablets based on Microsoft's Windows operating system aren't selling very well. There is a preference in the market for Android. In Europe, we're also seeing lackluster demand for Windows-based products."

Which, naturally, has done nothing to scotch those persistent rumors of the ATIV Tab being axed in Europe as well as the US. The CEO added that we can expect to see a Tizen-basedphone in the third quarter of the year, although Samsung will continue to flirt with every available OS for the needs of its customers.

This is likely not the biggest change SkyDrive will ever see, but Microsoft's still confident that Windows 8 and RT users of its cloud service are going to benefit from the latest tweak. And why wouldn't they, right? Earlier today, the Redmond-based company announced it's brought support for Live Tiles to the SkyDrive application on both Windows 8 and RT, with its main purpose being to show notifications rather than only being useful for launching the app. Naturally, this means folks will now be able to see relevant messages within the tiles when they make certain account modifications, including things like adding new files and quick previews of recently uploaded pictures. According to Microsoft, the novel feature will be available today, but it is rolling out gradually, so fret not if you're not seeing it pop up just yet.

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

We've been hearing talk of a Dropbox app for Windows 8 since the OS's big debut back in October, but there's now finally some good news for Windows users who favor the cloud-storage service. The Dropbox app is now available for both Windows 8 and Windows RT devices, offering all the basic features you'd expect (and not much more), including the ability to share files with with Windows 8's Share Charm. Windows Phone 8 users, on the other hand, still have some waiting to do for an official app.

After announcing it would start selling its Surface RT at third-party retailers in the US and Australia, we figured it was only a matter of time before Microsoft would extend this offer over to the UK (among other places, of course). Well, according to Pocket-lint, retailer John Lewis has confirmed to the site that it will indeed commence stocking both its virtual and physical shelves with Microsoft's 10.1-inch tablet, with the 32GB plus Black Touch Keyboard bundle set to be priced at £479, or £559 for the more spacious 64GB model. John Lewis says the Surface RT will be up for grabs tomorrow, December 14th, on its website, while brick-and-mortar stores should have them in stock starting this weekend.

If you've wondered how much space Windows RT, Office and Microsoft's bundled apps occupy on your shiny new Surface RT, worry no longer. Microsoft has revealed that once you've accounted for binary conversion, recovery provision and the software itself, the 32GB device will have 16GB of free space, while 64GB units will get 46GB of room to store your media. Naturally, you can use microSD cards (or USB Drives) to add to that space, and if you'd like to know how to get the device to treat it as if it's all coming from a single library, check out our tutorial.

Acer seems to be straddling a delicate position with respect to Microsoft right now. On the one hand, it's outwardly indifferent towards Surface RT and indeed the the whole Windows RT concept, which is why it's holding off on its own RT tablets for the time being. But if that's true, why are the company's top brass so eager for Microsoft to withdraw from the competition? President for Greater China, Linxian Lang, has just resorted to a food metaphor to emphasize the point, warning that Redmond will have to eat "hard rice" with Surface, and implying that it should stick to its more readily-chewed software diet. If you've seen our own Surface RT review, then you'll know our thoughts on the matter: Microsoft's tablet has been boiled and salted just right, which might be the real reason Acer is so averse to it.

Acer is no stranger to airing its skepticism of Microsoft Surface, but the company is now adopting caution as the name of the game for its own Windows RT tablets. In an interview with Reuters, company president Jim Wong told the outlet that Acer would deliver its own RT-based tablet no earlier than Q2, as it's now monitoring how Microsoft's own hardware fares in the marketplace. According to Wong, Acer had previously targeted a Q1 debut. As it lets Microsoft serve as the canary in the coal mine, Acer will continue to focus on its full-fledged Windows 8 hardware, as well as develop and refine its own RT offering. "I don't know what's next, what Microsoft will do," Wong said. "We are watching how Surface is doing ... How is RT accepted by customers... We don't know... We want to see."